The present invention relates generally to the field of user interfaces for electronic systems and, in particular, to an interface using pattern recognition and tracking.
Computers and other electronic devices continue to become more commonplace in society. In industry, computers are used in a wide variety of applications from analysis of data for scientific research to word processing in an office setting. The technical ability of the people using this complex equipment runs over a wide range as well; from researchers with doctorates in computer science to the word processor with a high school diploma. Thus, the computer industry constantly strives to develop user interfaces that are easy to use and understand.
For early computers, the interface consisted of punch cards that were fed into the computer to control its operation. Later, keyboards were added to computers to allow commands to be typed into the computer. More recently, the graphical user interface and xe2x80x9cmousexe2x80x9d have become popular in allowing the average user to get access to the great potential power of computing.
The interface for other electronic appliances have changed over the years as well. For example, televisions were initially controlled with knobs on the television set to change channels and adjust the video and audio output. Later, remote controls, both wired and wireless, were introduced.
One researcher has experimented with the use of gesture recognition as a user interface for electronic systems. W. T. Freeman, et al., Orientation Histograms for Hand Gesture Recognition, Int""l Workshop on Automatic Face and Gesture Recognition, Dept. Of Computer Science, Univ. of Zurich, Zurich, Switzerland, 1995, pp. 296-301. In this experimental system, a user places a hand in a selected orientation or gesture between a camera and a fixed background to input a command into the system. A user of this system is required to keep a hand in a fixed location against a non-textured background for the system to work properly. In this case, there is little advantage in ease of use when compared with using a mouse-type of interface which is tethered to a system by its connecting cable.
For the reasons stated above, and for other reasons stated below which will become apparent to those skilled in the art upon reading and understanding the present specification, there is a need in the art for an improve interface for electronic systems.
The above mentioned problems with interfacing with electronic systems and other problems are addressed by the present invention and will be understood by reading and studying the following specification. An interface is described which uses tracking to identify a portion of an image and pattern recognition to determine a desired input in the identified portion of the image.
In particular, an illustrative embodiment of the present invention includes a method for interfacing with an electronic system. The method includes receiving images from a camera. A portion of at least one image from the camera is tracked. A pattern in the tracked portion of the at least one image is recognized. And, the electronic system is controlled based on the recognized pattern.